Comments

Vince Young, um, ya....
Ernie Sims, All ACC, All American, first round draft pick
Adrian Peterson, another slam dunk
Derrick Williams, certified miss
Percy Harvin, and another slam dunk
Jimmy Clausen, absolutely tore it up his junior year. Maybe a miss, but not really.
Terrelle Pryor, unreal on the field
Bryce Brown, certified miss
Ronald Powell, hasn't looked great, but most players don't until their junior year, so this is the make or break year for him
Jadeveon Clowney, only a freshman, but looks like the real deal

Splitting hairs here, but for the #1 recruit in the country, I expect them to be considered one of the top five players in the nation at some point in their collegiate careers.

VY: Yep.

Sims: Good, but nope. His AA nod was from ESPN as a sohpomore and he came nowhere close to landing on an AA team as a junior. All-ACC is great, but again, this is the nation's top recruit we're talking about.

AP: Yep

Derrick Williams: Nope

Harvin: Yep

Clausen: Nope

Pryor: Nope. Amazing talent, but was overhyped. Remember, people were comparing him to VY when he was in HS. Even if you don't consider the off-the-field stuff, he could only make honorable mention All-B1G for his final season. In fact, he didn't make All-B1G 1st or 2nd team once during his time in Columbus. And this is despite being named B1G preseason offensive PoY twice.

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. The Heisman Trophy can be a joke, but Clausen didn't even finish in the top 10 in voting for the 2009 season. In fact, his teammate, Golden Tate, finished with more votes than Clausen did.

Here's a quick list of five players that were better than Clausen in 2009: Mark Ingram, Ndamukong Suh, Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow and C.J. Spiller.

Made me wonder what the NFL drafts #1 picks look like in the same amount of time. Luck, Newton, Bradford, Stafford, Long, JaMarcus, Mario, Alex Smith, Manning, Palmer, Carr. I think its very comparable to the NCAA's "draft"-- 2 playes who were worthless: Carr and Russell and the rest are good solid guys with a couple great ones.

The only real busts on that list are Williams and Brown. Brown completely flamed out, but Williams was at least a decent player. Everyone else is either a program all-timer (VY, TP whether we want to admit it or not, Harvin, Peterson) or someone who definitely left their mark on the program (Sims, Clausen).
Now, in terms of NFL results, that list is brutal. Two starters on that list, both for the Viqueens.

They might be referring to NFL careers...outside of Harvin and Peterson (both on the same team??), none of these #1 recruits have made a big NFL impact.
Pryor was a 2 year starter? More like 2.75 year starter.

If anything, this should tell us what a crap-shoot recruiting is, and why perhaps we shouldn't care so much about it. I'm all for evaluating recruiting classes and stuff like that, but I honestly don't care whether or not Alex Anzalone wanted to stop in Columbus on his way back from South Bend (and no, Columbus is not on the way... look at a map... it adds about two hours to the trip back to Reading, PA... maybe more when you consider that I-76 is currently a shithole) and what this means if he doesn't stop in Cbus and ZOMG did you see what some supposed insider tweeted?
This is not a knock on the 11W staff. they do a tremendous job, and they're just playing to their market.

Recruiting isn't a crap shoot. The teams that recruit the best are almost always the best teams. Yes, there are exceptions, but more often than not poor coaching (FSU for most of the aughts, Notre Dame forever) is a big part of that equation.

Well ya, but you are talking about the bigger picture-if you recruit 25 great players each season (44 if you are in the SEC) then you will fill out your depth chart and have a good team. On the individual basis though, you really don't know what you are getting. Its next to impossible to really guess how each and every player will do against heightened competition. There's no way of knowing how each and every kid will turn out so you end up subscribing to the "Throw 100 rocks in the air and hope 30 hit you in the head" theory.

Do I come off as arrogant? Shame on me, I was hoping it would be more obvious.